ned+ietf-smtp(_at_)mrochek(_dot_)com writes:
> Reordering fields of different types relative to each other is another
> matter. Our MTA does this routinely - the facility we provide for
> this is heavily used. The reason is that there are lots of things out
> there which are order-sensitive in one way or another.
Could you give a few examples?
Some versions of multiple products from a certain vendor in Redmond come to
mind...
Why do your customers use this heavily?
Frankly, I have no idea why it is so popular. But customer desires and
requirements are often mysterious. Only yesterday we were dealing with someone
who insisted on all vCard attachments being stripped from messages unless we
could prove that there have never been any significant security holes
associated with them. Proving a negative is such fun...
> Of course these things are broken, but when we're talking about
> breakage in very popular systems saying they should behave this way
> is a waste of time.
Well, yes and no... I suppose expecting it to stop is futile, but
talking about breakage may have other beneficial results. For a start,
Bruce Lilly will post the URL to your elaboration next time we have the
same thread ;)
With all due respect, when an important customer doesn't care whose fault it
really is, demands a workaround for a problem and is ready and willing to
switch to another product if the workaround isn't forthcoming, an engineer who
says "no" will find themselves needing to spend time updating their resume
rather than writing code.
Ned